let’s whisper // DO YOU GENUINELY LOVE THE CONTENT YOU’RE CREATING AND CONSUMING?

lately, i’ve been thinking a lot about the content i’m creating and consuming.

as a blogger, i obviously spend a lot of time writing up posts, and also reading posts from the blogs i follow. and whenever i blog hop (visit other blogs) and comment on them, i feel VERY accomplished. i’m like “yay! productivity!!”. the main reason i blog hop is because commenting on other blogs has a direct correlation with stats. the more you comment on other people’s blogs, the more comments you’re going to get. and i LOVE comments! therefore i blog hop.

but then that got me thinking. if i’m only blog hopping to increase my blog growth, is that…a good reason to comment on posts and visit them? and the more i thought about it, i realised…i don’t think it IS?

look, interacting with other blogs to grow your blog is FINE. networking, finding friends in the community, and interacting with people is GREAT.

but for me personally, i want to find blogs i ACTUALLY enjoy. and honestly? Monthly TBR’s and the same tags over and over again get repetitive and boring real quick.

earlier this year, i went on a following purge and i unfollowed all the blogs i didn’t enjoy. these included blogs where i was friends with the owner. but I DID IT. i was brave.

but as soon as i got back into blogging, i realised the lower number of comments, and so consequently blog hopped LOADS to bring back up the comment numbers! and it works guys.

but the blogs i was visiting and commenting on, weren’t ones i was necessarily ENJOYING. they were just okay to read and comment on.

do we enjoy reading blog posts or do we enjoy the accomplishment of blog hopping and the consequences of blog growth you get from it?

do you actually ENJOY reading half the blogs you read? like ENJOY ENJOY??? i don’t know. i feel like i enjoy a lot of blogs but then i also don’t find others that entertaining.

and because i think the main reason we comment on other blogs is because we want the owner to comment back on our blogs (giving better statistics) i just think our standard for content? is very low.

i don’t mean this to say people are putting out GARBAGE content and we just all pretend we like it to get views. NO.

i’m saying that there’s a vicious cycle of you commenting on meh-posts which allows people to comment back on your meh-posts, which means you’re meh-posts are doing well in terms of stats, so you continue posting that meh-content and the cycle CONTINUES, creating *gestures hand to the book blogosphere*, a lot of meh and unoriginal posts.

and by “meh” i mean content that’s just not out THERE. you know. i get it, monthly tbr’s, and tags and awards can be FUN to post. but i feel like the book blogging community really limits it self sometimes. (the only “repetitive” post i like are monthly wraps up THOSE ARE THE BEST)

like i hardly ever see really unique posts. and i’m not saying we all have to post super unique posts all the time. trust me, that’s impossible. but i don’t think anyone’s really challenging themselves to kind of break the barriers? i feel like we’re okay with the same posts and discussions and books…over, and over again. i’ve been feeling it so much lately. that my content isn’t the best thing ever, but i still get a decent amount of comments. and i don’t even think my content is that great?

and look I ENJOY reading monthly TBR’s or tags or reviews! i’m just saying i wish we saw MORE CREATIVE content and content that doesn’t really fit the usual trend of posts, you know? i’m not saying “unoriginal” posts can’t be fun to read because they totally CAN. i just want to see more variety and creativity.

i feel like most people are commenting on my posts because 1) it increases their blog growth 2) i commented on their blog or 3) they feel an obligation to. obviously, if they enjoyed the post and want to add their own thoughts that’s a different case.

is it just me but wouldn’t it be great if people visited your posts JUST because they genuinely enjoy your content and not because they want a comment back, or because i commented on their post. they purely visit my blog because they GENUINELY find my content engaging.

that, would, be, amazing.

if i stopped blog hopping as much as i do now, who would really stick around? if i’m giving nothing back to you( tho still visiting the blogs i love) apart from content, would you stay following just because my content is GOOD??

and my content is not GOOD right now, i don’t think. i haven’t really pushed myself because the posts i’m doing right now get enough comments and likes that make me feel good about myself.

i don’t want to blog just to feel famous. i want to blog to put content out in the world that people genuinely love and appreciate. that is what i want.

anyways, part of the reason i was thinking about this, was actually because of my very amazing friend, ju @ paperblots. there a lot of blogs that i enjoy, but her blog just sticks out to me right now so i’m gonna rant about it, ok? ju has the type of posts that are always entertaining. i LOVE her blog. even if ju never visited my blog, or talked to me, or anything, i would still read her blog because it’s genuinely funny and relatable. obviously, i only found out about her blog via blog hopping but i can firmly say that i would continue following and reading even if she never visited my blog again. because her content is just THAT good, and i am honestly entertained by it. even when she posts TBRs, her writing voice is so amusing and great. i adore her personality. honestly her post about spoofing book titles? iconic. goals. i want more of those weird, out-there posts. that are so different to the normal posts we see in our feeds.

and i want to reach That level. where i have readers, who no matter what, actually enjoy my content! and i don’t think i’m at that level where i’m creating posts that are purely enjoyable. i don’t love the posts i’m creating so i don’t think i’ve even reached that point in my blogging life.

this is not to say that DON’T EVER BLOG HOP because that’s how you find amazing blogs in the first place?? i just think that a lot of the time we limit ourselves via the vicious cycle of stats defining how successful a post is.

anyways, that’s the tea for today!!! this was an unorganised rant but i needed to VENT.

54 thoughts on “let’s whisper // DO YOU GENUINELY LOVE THE CONTENT YOU’RE CREATING AND CONSUMING?”

I definitely think numbers and trying to get readers does play a part in what content we create (or perhaps how we present it at the very least). Personally, I do love the content I create. I made this blog as open as possible so I can write about what I want and not feel limited or repetitive. Of course, there are downsides to nicheless blogs, but I think it’s worth it for me because I’m able to write all the nonsense I want and know it’s my best self here. I would love more followers, more engagement, but just writing about the topics I know do better over and over and over would bore me and make it quite clear that I’m a sell-out.
You also talk about if the content is good, and I think there are points where one has to say ‘hey maybe this isn’t the absolute best, but I like it’. Good is subjective, and not good doesn’t mean awful. Blog at your own pace and blog to your own standards, and if people don’t like that as much, at least you had fun doing something you love.

I honestly didn’t even realise that blog hopping was good for stats and stuff. I mean, I obviously realized that whenever I would comment on someone’s posts, they’d typically comment on mine. Or if I followed someone, they’d sometimes follow me back. But my brain just didn’t really connect blog hopping to blog growth, and I guess I never thought about how maybe people aren’t liking/commenting on my content because they genuinely like it, but because they feel obligated to because I did the same on there’s?
I go through stages of blog hopping, where some days I’ll visit upwards of 20 new blogs, and then go a few days without checking out anyone new. I know some people will check out and like posts on five or ten different blogs every day, but I’ve just never felt genuine doing that. Not to say that it’s a bad thing or anything, but I personally find that the one thing I am genuinely proud of about my blog is that I’m entirely me, and that means interacting with content that I actually like and enjoy. I mean, I’ll like the posts by blogs I follow, and read posts that seem interesting, but comments are one thing I save for posts that genuinely make me think or laugh or that I just really enjoyed for whatever reason. And so my brain never connected to the dots of “these comments don’t all mean that this particular post is good content”.
I’m not saying that all my content must automatically be trash cuz I blog hop, because that’s obviously not what you’re saying, and I know that not ALL of my content is bad. However, what I AM trying to say is that I’ve been assuming this whole time that if a post gets a certain amount of comments or likes that people must genuinely enjoy it, and so I’ve never bothered to try improving, and this post has really pushed me to start trying to branch out with the content I make, because I know that I do post a lot of the same sorts of things over and over, and I know there’s a lot more I could bring to blogging, but I’ve never really gone out there and tried new things because it never occurred to me that people might be commenting on and liking my posts out of obligation.
I love blog hopping, because I just really like all kinds of bookish content and interacting with this community and finding new people. But I definitely see how blog hopping could get us into this cycle of comfort and prevent us from really trying out new content. I’m not a very creative person, so I’ve relied a lot on content like tags and memes, cuz people have already done the creative stuff for me. But I started this blog, in part, to push myself to be more creative in the way I talk about books, and this post has really inspired me to keep that goal in mind a lot more and go out of my comfort zone to create new and interesting content as well as the tags and memes and hauls and whatnot.
But yeah, this was really interesting to think about and I really liked the way you articulated everything. And if it makes you feel any better, I genuinely do think I would still follow and interact with your blog, even if you never even acknowledged my existence. I just really like the way you make your points and your individual voice, and so pair that with the fact that your taste in books is fairly similar to mine, and your blog ends up being something I really enjoy reading :))

okay, ilsa? even if i didn’t know you i would still read your blog. you publish content i WISH i created, and I promise im not just saying that. i too love comments, but i especially like them from bloggers who im closer to rather than random ones. (ex. of bloggers who im closer to: you, etc) thank you so much for posting this as it’s a reminder we could all stand to hear sometimes, and it made me *think* about if i like what im producing xxx
p.s. yes, monthly recaps are the best 😉

I love your content, and that’s why I stay following your blog. I love these unedited unfiltered posts too. I feel like there are some blogs that I need to unfollow because I don’t read the same books as the blogger and other reasons. I get tired of seeing tags all the time, I stopped posting them. I still do Top 5 Wednesday, but I try to make my answers not cliché. Another thing that annoys me a lot, and I know they’re very helpful is seeing blitzes and blog tours, and cover reveals all the time, I don’t think there’s anything really unique about them. I think I need to go and unfollow some blogs, especially ones that aren’t really active anymore.

I agree a lot with you on this. I feel like a lot of bloggers just turn out massive amounts of a content, 4-5 blog posts per week, and I go and read them and there’s almost no thought behind them. Or they’re mainly images and hardly any text about ‘why’ they’re recommending a book or ‘why’ they disliked a book. So yes, I don’t really like the stuff I’m reading because some bloggers feel they need to be super active pumping out posts to get more views and comments. Quality over quantity people, quality over quantity. 👍🏼

Personally, I enjoy the way you write- your writing feels so free in a sense. Now don’t get me wrong, some people aren’t always going to be there for the content created. It’s just how life goes, however, some of us genuinely enjoy what you write. I love understanding what other people think of a book! Everyone has their own opinions and its nice that people write them. I like your writing because you don’t follow the trend all the time.

If I see a one-book review or something that doesn’t intrigue me, I won’t read it. Of course, I still end up reading less- than entertaining posts sometimes (A lot of the time) Tags bring ratings, so it’s easy to see why there’s so many Top 10 posts. I want to learn something, why someone thinks a book is good or bad, not just that it fits a pre-selected category.
As for my own content, I always think I could do better. I try different things, but no single format sticks. I rather like it; I’ve written from the perspective of a character, to a character, the general tone of a book. I think the best ones are the ones where I just talk about what’s on my mind, like massive TBRs. I’m still learning how to be a book blogger after several years of book blogging, but i try to do what I love and what will get rating simultaneously.

This was a really good post, it definitely made me think! I’ve just gone on a huge following purge and it’s really nice to just have the blogs I enjoy the content of in my reader. I won’t read posts that don’t have interesting titles, so I think that’s a HUGE part of blogging and that’s why I try to make my titles interesting. I really enjoy your blog and these sort of posts, they just feel very free of toxicity and very real. With my own content, I try to create the sort of stuff I enjoy reading myself, but I often find myself looking through my stats at the posts that get the most views and repeating those same posts, often just for the views and likes and comments because they do feel very good to receive.
Anyway, this was a very entertaining and thought-provoking post to read, so thank you for that! xo

Such a good post! I honestly don’t have the time to blog hop, and I definitely notice that it means you don’t get as many comments. I only ever read posts if I’m interested in the content, which means a lot of the time I’m not reading posts… which is kind of sad. I do have a couple of blogging friends, and sometimes I’ll read their posts that I otherwise might not have, especially if we have been talking about writing the post, simply to see what the final product turned out to be… but anyway. It’s kind of a shame to not get as much traffic on your blog, comments etc., but equally it’s also kind of nice to have a low-pressure setting where you just read whatever interests you and it’s people choice whether to interact with your or not… That being said, I miss having loads of great blogs in my reader and blog hopping would definitely help with that so really I should just find a post of blog recommendations or something…

To let you know, I’m typing this and reading your post because I love your content. It has always stuck out to me in a unique kind of way. But anyways, I’ve always commenting on blog posts for the sole reason that the post caught my eye, and I hope that’s why people read my blog, but i don’t know. But i definitely understand what you’re saying, because commenting gets us out there to where people see our name and might just maybe click on that name to go to our content.
For me, I can’t say that I haven’t done this before, because I have. But what I like to think about is the fact that other bloggers deserve recognition based on the work they’ve done, not because I decided to write something just to write a comment.
Your writing has always had me thinking, and I’m so glad this is it because it’s something that’s important, but not discussed widely enough.

Tbh eventhough i’ve always known that massive bloghopping would get people back to my blog and bloghopping is something i advise starting bloggers with whenever they ask, i take genuine interaction above all else. And i honestly CANNOT bring myself to read and comment on posts I do not care for and I knew making this decision that my stats wouldn’t be the best but 🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️ i barely have time to visit other blogs as it is so i choose to spend that time on the posts that interest me.
This was such an iconic rant tho, it opens up space for a much needed discussion!!

when i first started blogging i did this quite a bit. i also did the same sorts of posts over and over again but that made sense since i was a newbie blogger. i learned about blogging and grew as a blogger as i began blogging more and more. yet i still was reading the same tbr, tag, etc posts that weren’t intriguing and not only did it lessen the amount of comments i left on other’s posts (which thus lessened the traffic on my own blog) but i also felt unmotivated to post on my OWN blog! it’s really important that you find the few blogs which give you quality over quantity for these reasons. i do need to go through my list of bloggers i follow and get rid of the ones that don’t… inspire me to write posts because then i will be able to start blogging again and maybe being more creative myself! great post 🙂

this is genuinely one of the best posts I’ve ever read, Ilsa. I LOVE IT SO MUCH and unfortunately?? I can relate, so much. I think when I first started blogging I was always searching for actually creative and interesting blogs to follow and tbh I still feel like I don’t follow enough 😥 I did go through a blog cleansing where I unfollowed a TON of blogs even though blog hopping helped to bring traffic to my own blog, and I think my feed is not as repetitive as it used to be! Sometimes I see posts where they write like, 2 sentences, and then they still get a ton of comments and I’m like ???? what??? Anyways, I cannot believe you shouted me out I LOVE YOU SO MUCH ILSA!!!

This is a really great post, Ilsa! The part about getting caught up into a cycle of meh posts stuck out to me a lot and I can tell I’ll be thinking about everything you wrote here in weeks to come. I love blog hopping because it’s how I discover new blogs and to support other bloggers, but I definitely agree that we should be devoting our time to reading blog posts that we are genuinely interested in and that actually entertain us!! (And by the way, your blog is sincerely so entertaining and your blogging voice is really unique. Just thought you should know. 😉 )

This was a really interesting point and I definitely agree that you can get stuck in a cycle of it.
I 100% agree that genuine interaction is the best– where you engage with someone because you enjoy their content and makes it enjoyable for you when reading.
And I think it is interesting to think how it affects your content because the time spent on a post isn’t connected to the feedback you will have so what is pushing you to improve your content? I say this will depend on the day as on some days I am so exciting to write posts whilst others I am not in the mood. But I definitely love the idea of thinking of new posts and challenging myself for new, unique ideas etc.
And obviously blog hopping affects your statistics so it is useful but I think enjoyment is definitely a big part of it and you don’t want to get stuck in a cycle.
Great post Ilsa!! 💛

I feel this! I feel also like my blog has taken a bit of a slow-down on the content recently due to just being…tired lol. I think maybe a lot of us in the community are tired? Negativity and call-outs seem to be prevalent on places like twitter so I guess when we all go to actually creating content we’re not being excited or boosted by what everyone else is doing? idk if that makes sense. 🙈 I love blog-hopping for the stats BUT also for reading content I enjoy! And making friends! I want to support my friends, even if it’s just a WWW post or whatever haha. But I definitely think what you’ve said has a lot of truth to it and I want to give myself a kick into writing more creative posts. Or any posts. I think I have done 4 this month. 😂😂

Ahhh, I love this post so much! Ilsa, you honestly have some of true best discussions ever! I love you and your content so much! ❤️ I used to follow hundreds of blogs and would spend at least an hour or two a day, blog hopping. But, I began to realize that that comments I was leaving on a lot of posts, were very short and impersonal, since I wasn’t SUPER interested in the post. This year, since I don’t nearly have enough time to blog and blog hop, I decided to a) trim down the number of blogs I follow on WP, so I’m reading posts I’m genuinely interested in and can thereby, leave more thoughtful comments, and b) focus on quality over quantity for my own posts. 🙂

I think this was more of an issue for me when I first started out blogging. Now, I’m very picky about who I follow and who I comment on. I do still comment on a lot of things, but only if I feel like I actually have something I want to comment on… idk if that makes sense. I really like this post though, because I feel like there are a lot of people that they should comment on everything and follow all these blogs that aren’t that amazing! Great post Ilsa xx

I definitely go looking at blogs and creating content with the purpose of growing an audience. But I know if I don’t go out with that purpose, I’ll never actually write and read the things that I enjoy 🙂

This is such an important and interesting read, Ilsa! I have a different relationship to hopping and following than a lot of other bloggers out there I think. From the beginning I have always been highly selective about the blogs I follow, because I wanted to keep the amount in my WP Reader manageable to hop to. I only follow the blogs that I truly enjoy reading, and that isn’t to say there aren’t other amazing blogs out there – because there are – but I never blindly followed back or did a follow for follow. Which has helped.

I will admit that I started blog hopping wayyyy when first starting out to help build an audience, but that over time it has become one of my most favorite parts of blogging! I enjoy reading and commenting on posts, and now I really only read the posts I am interested in (I HATE Top 10 Tuesdays and the TBR Rabbit Hole memes, so I skip those for the most part), and only comment when I have something genuine to say in response to the post without any hope for reciprocity. And I feel like if more bloggers approached hopping as something fun to do & getting to know other bloggers rather than a chore to grow their blog, it might not only be more enjoyable but also result in more natural growth as well. Because I am going to be honest – those comments that say “great post!” or something very generic that scream “I am in this for the comment back” do not inspire me to check out a person’s blog.

That all being said, I AGREE WITH YOU about the CONTENT! I mentioned that I really dislike most of those weekly meme posts and skip them. TTT has interesting topics but it gets boring to read the same post 100 times a day, and the other ones??? I don’t know. I don’t really care to see an alphabet challenge or watch you clean up your TBR. I’d be more interested in discussions or new ideas & concepts, engaging posts or reviews or interviews, I hope to be able to bring more unique content one day to my blog, it is something I am always striving for!

This makes 100% sense. I really have been thinking about how much I like the content I’m taking in recently as well, and I need to do a cleaning of unfollowing people as well, I feel. I don’t comment on posts unless I actually like them, and I’ve never seen a direct correlation between my commenting and my stats. 😛 Maybe that’s just me? But yeah. I think we shouldn’t fill up our time reading stuff we don’t even like, so if that person somehow isn’t making your life better, it’s not being selfish to unfollow. It’s taking care of yourself. You want to live a happy life, so read what you like. Don’t just keep following because they’re your friend, or because you’re worried that you’ll miss something. 🙂

This is such an interesting and thought-provoking post and I have to say that I’ve asked myself the very same questions about blog hopping, statistics, people genuinely coming to my blog for my content or just because I visited their blog and so on. I have to say that I’m here on this post today and always on your posts because I always love reading them and you have your unique voice and way of talking about books and writing discussions like these ones that just make me want to comment on them and want to chat with you, too. You’re doing amazing and thank you for this rant, like, really. This makes me think a lot, too. There are so many blog posts out there and the memes and TTT are sometimes getting tiring to read and I much prefer interacting with other kind of posts like discussions and reviews and tags (tags are fun to read for me, even if I don’t like to read a ton of them at a time). As for content I’m creating, I have noticed that I also tend to try and turn towards other kind of content on my own blog, doing my best to create content I love the most, like discussions and lists and giving up memes and doing just a tag every now and then because I want to create content I genuinely like and content I would interact with, too, if I were a visitor on my own blog.
I ranted a whole lot and I’m so sorry, this was such a thoughtful post, thank you for sharing ❤

I feel like I’m definitely one of the people you unfollowed haha but that’s ok! Honestly I’ve just straight up abandoned my blog for a year so its only natural people will unfollow. I relate to everything that you said in this post because this is one of the reasons that I stopped blogging. But yours is one of the blogs that I still read even though I never was active on wordpress so I still believe yours is good content and I genuinely do enjoy reading your posts. You were one of the first friends I made here and you are the one person who’s made a guest post on my blog so you are a person who will always be special to me and my blog irrespective of whether you follow me or not. So Ilsa I still think you are amazing and put out really good content that I do enjoy reading❤

This is a question that quite often I ask myself… My favorite posts to “consume” are Discussion and Recommendation Post.. That’s what i gravitate toward but I can’t just fill my blog with those no matter how much I want to… So I just try to keep a tenous balance in the content I put out there… but Yeah, sometimes I wonder if it’s really the best I can Do….

I think there’s a line between blog hopping for fun and then just doing it for the stats and it is a struggle. Even if I end up following lots of blogs, I’m still picky about what I read – there are certain things that just don’t interest me and if blogging stops being fun, I will see it as a chore and I don’t want that! And I’d like to think that even though I do participate in memes and the usual wrap up, each post is something I’ve spent time and care working on!

Why is this post such a big mood?? I’ve been thinking so much about lately how it was seen as necessary to blog hop to start making friends and to also drive statistics to your own blog, but it’s also like UHHHHHH sometimes I’m honestly just not a fan of what people are creating (no offense), and I just really want to dedicate my time to my favorite blogs and their fun content. Blog hopping definitely shouldn’t be a chore, but when you approach it as just needing to commenting on many people’s blogs to gain traction for your own, then it defeats the intended purpose and it definitely starts to feel like a chore than something enjoyable :O

[…] with her, but there are so, so many other bloggers out there just like her with an unique voice. Ilsa @ Whisper of Ink has her way of writing incredibly thoughtful discussions that always hit me deep. May @ Forever and […]

Wow this post is so thought-provoking! I’ve been…well, behind on blog hopping. I took a week off blogging and never really “caught up.” But that’s just the thing…if blog hopping becomes a chore, then I’m not able to enjoy reading other blogs. I’m not able to really connect with people, because I’m just doing it out of obligation.

I have definitely reached the point where I only read posts that I want to read. I don’t enjoy reading tags, unless it’s someone whose blogging voice I really enjoy, or someone I just want to get to know better, regardless. I don’t even like reading reviews. And to be honest, I don’t expect anyone to read my reviews either. But then it’s like…wtf is the point of writing all these posts if the only ones I care about (writing or reading) are discussions? And like you said, even those start to feel repetitive after a while.

You’ve definitely got me re-thinking my perspective on blog hopping and on the content I write. I’m so glad you shared your thoughts!

Ironically enough I clicked on this post while blog hopping. But I’m commenting because I genuinely enjoyed this post! It made me think a lot about what blogs I read and what I comment on.

I really enjoy blog hopping! I always start with commenting on the blogs that I follow because the majority of those are the people whose content I love and would read even if they didn’t comment back. Once I’ve finished with that I follow links that I find in tags and wrap ups to discover new blogs. But I am very picky! I only comment on content that I find interesting. If I don’t find a post I like, I leave the blog. This usually means I’m commenting on discussion posts because I LOVE discussion posts. But if I have nothing to say, even if I enjoyed a post, I don’t force a comment. I might make a note to come back to the blog to see if they have other content I enjoy though, but I think that the post I enjoyed was an outlier I might not make that effort.

I’m very content based when it comes to all my comments and follows. I want to be able to easily comment on a post, and so I try to curate my reading with that goal in mind!

I definitely know where you’re coming from with this post. I comment back ALMOST all the time, but lately I’ve given myself permission not to do so if it’s a blogger that simply doesn’t have content I’m interested in. I try to find something, but I’m not going to comment on a review of a random cozy mystery just to be able to comment (not that there’s anything wrong with cozy mysteries–that just isn’t a genre I enjoy). I used to do that—comment JUST for the sake of commenting—but you can drive yourself crazy, and what’s the point if you’re not fostering a relationship with a blogger who shares your tastes? Still, it took me a long time to convince myself of this.

And you make great points about creating useful and creative content as well, of course. 🙂 Thanks for this post!

Ilsa, this post was really thought-provoking!! And I can say with confidence that I am commenting this because it really was interesting to me, haha. I totally agree that tags and reviews can be cool, but there does seem to be a LOT of repetition as far as posts and books and stuff. And like you said, it’s tough to be coming up with super creative ideas all the time, so idk really how to fix it, but it’s very interesting to think about. Anyways, I really love reading your blog because of how authentic you are! These sorts of posts are always super interesting to read, so thank you for writing this! I feel like I just said interesting way too many times, but yeah 🤷

[…] how does this engagement correlate to the quality of our posts, as bloggers? Ilsa from A Whisper of Ink recently shared a post about how the quality of blog posts might not be as high as we presume they […]

Well, I do like your content even though I just found out about your blog like 20 minutes ago
Lol, I didn’t know blog hopping was a thing and I used to do it😂 but recently I haven’t been so engaged with other bloggers on my WordPress and I feel so bad about it because they are amazeballs. I’ve just been so concerned about putting my blog out there on my Instagram and bringing fame my blogs way and thats all good but this post has made me think that I should focus more on creating good content.

[…] that I aspire to emulate more. A few of my favorite discussions that Ilsa has written include this one about whether or not we love the content we create and consume, and this one about being genuine in book reviews. (Also, idk if this counts as a discussion post, […]

This is an amazing and important discussion to have! I definitely have to agree with you – I’m really not a big fan of a lot of repetitive posts, and I don’t think a lot of other people are either. You’re completely right, it’s just a vicious cycle that makes us believe that unoriginal posts are just as good as original ones, which is definitely not the case. I’m still looking to grow my subscription box, so we’ll see how that goes! I really enjoy your content, so I’ll definitely follow your blog! XD

Thank you Amy! This comment means a lot. While I can appreciate the “basic” book blogging content and do think it’s important (TBRs, hauls, monthly recaps), I deffo wanna see more variety (but i’m horrible at even posting in the first place soo…)